RS

MEMBER DIARY

Government? Corporations? Something Else? Is OWS Aiming At the Right Target?

I participated in a comment thread to a blog post suggesting that the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street protestors ought to come together and find common ground. It incorporated a Venn diagram of what the two groups think are the source of the problem and the intersection was what they could agree on.

Unfortunately, the diagram is just too simplistic. It equates corporate power with government post, which ignores the fact that much of the power corporations has comes from the government, because the government is susceptible to corruption. Because that’s true, the protest ought to be Occupy Pennsylvania Avenue. Trying to explain that to folks who agree with OWS was an exercise in futility. While buying power is wrong, selling it is worse, and is in fact the root cause of the problem.

One of the commenters, waynefromnaz, who understood this concept, put together a video showing the problem with the Venn diagram, and introducing one of his own that explains the real problem in a much better way. He highlights the fact that corporations aren’t the only ones who buy power, and thus the problem isn’t just that this or that group can buy it, but the main problem is that anyone can buy it, and thus we should go after the group selling it (i.e. government).

Additionally, this exposes the political motivation behind OWS. Why aren’t they protesting the unions that buy power and get special favors? Noticeably absent from the list of those being protested against are typical Democrat supporters. No, they’re concentrating on groups that many consider Republican constituencies. I don’t think that’s by accident.